New PC?

Well it looks like it's time to replace the old beigie box. When I went to check the forums last night I was greeted with the smell of hot/melted plastic from my PC. Upon inspection I discovered that a 47µF cap had fallen off my soundcard melting the PCB and PCI slot in the process . And as the unit is already fairly old I think I'd be better off replacing it, especially since the motherboard has taken some damage.

Having not been following the PC market for a while now I was wondering if anyone here could recommend a decent system for ~£1000. My main uses would be the internet, document writing, image editing, audio ripping/encoding, playing the odd game. I'm toying with the idea of going for a laptop as portability/small size would be useful. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Cheers,
BL21DE3

 

I'd not advise getting a laptop unless portability/size is a major factor, laptops are a sod to upgrade and very costly.

If your up to building your own do it and go for an AMD processor.

 

These are small but use normal sized bits and pieces, as you can see they have a range of both Intel and AMD chipsets in fact one of almost every occasion. A whole subculture of hardcore overclockers, gamers, DIY fiends and people who just want small box exists plus a forum full of info. So give Shuttle a go and look at suggested prebuilt kit (US only) , the full range of Intel & AMD boxes an last but not least the font of all knowledge. Lots of bods build their own and optimise them for gaming, ripping and other exotica - a grand should get you something worth playing with.

Auric

 

If you want a quiet PC you'll have to build it yourself or, as I did, buy a suitable ready made one and then pull it apart and replace some of the components.

Beware! PC marketeers have a different definition of the word 'quiet' to the one you and I are used to.

For a small tower PC, I can personally recommend MESH and Evesham.

A friend of mine had a very bad experience with Time.

Another friend had a very bad experience with Watford/Aries.

 

Almost all my PCs have been self built so that will probably be the route that I'll take. I much prefer knowing exactly what is in the case and being able to mix & match to get the best performance for my money. The Shuttle cases look like they'd fit the bill in terms of being compact while offering upgrade possibilities. I guess I'll just have to do my homework and see what I can put together for my cash.
Cheers for the suggestions so far guys.

BL21DE3

 

Good point Chris, this site Silent PC Review attempts to give a view as to the things that make the least sound be they fans or disks - they even have a load of kit that is passaly cooled (not much sound at all). The Zen ST62K , makes use of passave cooling but you have to use the builtin video card (On Board VGA: Intergrate high performance ATi Radeon 9100) but if you are only doing office tasks (mostly 2d) then this may not be a killer problem. The next in quietness is the ST61G4 that has the same builtin video card but offers a space for one of a higher specification if required. If you feel very ucky then the place to go for rather small DIY kit is the online store at mini-itx.com - store - configure a system may well meet all of you needs.

Auric

 

Shuttle or any other SFF PC's are very cool not only in looks but also space. Some of the guys on Hardforum.com (which has been down for the last 2+ weeks for "upgrading" - which for a IT forum is an absolute piss take) have modded them up to silly spec's and are now running well up to big spec' full size PC speeds.

On the whole a good idea and everything is upgradeable (except the main board I think as thats OEM and part of the case) just like a full sized PC.

HTH

 

There are still a few fanless graphics cards around. The Matrox Millenium G550 for one. Or the one I have in my MESH which is an nVidia GeForce FX5200 with DVI output. It gets a little hot for my liking which is why I have a 9cm fan pointed at it, running at about 1200 rpm with a Zalman fan speed reducer. Those fans are undetectable running at that speed.

The CPU is an Athlon XP 2400+ which I fitted with a Zalman Al/Cu Flower heatsink and this is also cooled by a 9cm fan running at minimum speed. Currently running at 46 degrees as compared with 52 degrees with the very noisy stock cooler supplied by MESH.

The power supply also had to be replaced. Most of teh so-called quiet power supplies are nothing of the sort. They run quietly when first turned on but soon switch to hovercraft mode as they warm up. I got a Nexus model with a 12cm fan and this really is quiet.

The only sound I have now is from the hard disk and you have to stop what you're doing (including breathing) to hear it.

MESH supplied an Asus A7N8X-VM motherboard. This seems to be a popular model and has been pretty good so far. It's a step on from my old machine in that it actually shuts the machine off when you put the computer to sleep (or standby mode).

Next time around I will be braver and buy all the bits myself, including a nice home theatre PC case. Every part will be selected for silence.

 

Dudes
these are some of the places in the Uk that sell shuttle bits, partly preconfigured kit or mix and match - have a look and see what you think. These sites should give you a good idea of prices and "what goes with what".


The Glow Lounge
Micro Direct Ltd.
I.T. S & H S Limited
My Shuttle Co
Gemma mailorder

May I also suggest you spend a bt of time on the forum and use some of their existing system configurations to give you ideas for your system.

Auric

 

Cheers for the links Auric. My mate in London had already suggested Microdirect to me, they seem to have a fairly good range of stuff at reasonable prices. I'm tempted by the SB75G2 as a base unit, based on my quick pricing I should be able to put it together with some nice componenets for around £700 all told.

 

I to am tending towards a Sb75g2, I know it is a bit hot and makes a bit of noise compared to others but as it has most of the connections of the new "media centered life style product" st61g4 and is certified to run Linux along with the sb62g2 then it looks the way to go.

Auric

 

Hope you're going to stick a decent graphics card in that bad boy if you're gaming or working with images...

 

PeteH, I'm looking at an ATI 9600 Pro or XT as my graphics card. In fact the spec I'm pricing at the moment is a SB75G2, P4 3GHz 800 MHz HT, 160 Gb S-ATA HDD, 2 x 512 Mb DDR 400. Current calculations have it all coming to around £700 inc. vat.

 

Looks good to me, will you be going for the Radeon 9600 Pro AIW 128MB - Connect 3D with a pile of TV, Video & editing stuff all in the one box and card? I only ask because I know little about the gaiming and video side of things but a good few people reckon the AIW cards.

Auric

 

Auric, I was looking at either the Sapphire 9600 XT http://www.microdirect.co.uk/ProductInfo.aspx?ProductID=5821&GroupID=502 or the Sapphire 9600 Pro http://www.microdirect.co.uk/ProductInfo.aspx?ProductID=5827&GroupID=502 as I don't really need TV/radio capabilities on my gfx card and the Sapphire cards seem to get good write ups.

 

sata isnt all its cracked up to be - potential of serial ata vs ide is yet to be realised
i'd stick with ide
plus the radeon 9200 card here should be fine if u're not a "power gamer"

 

Well there's not much of a price difference between the SATA and the EIDE model of the HDD I'm considering so I reckon I'll go with the SATA version just as a bit of 'future proofing'. The same goes for the gfx card, I know it'll be out dated within 6 months but at least it'll hang in there a bit longer than the lower models. Plus it should be able to handle my occassional 'power gaming' moments.

 

If you think that at some point you will have an LCD monitor, make sure your graphics card has DVI out. This makes a world of difference when using an LCD. Of course it goes without saying that you must choose an LCD with DVI in. They don't all have it.

 

SATA & windows install

If you search through the sudhian you will find a few postings dealing with problems found when installing SATA drivers under various flavours of windows . The main bone of contention seems to be the order of installation and the need or not for a floppy drive internal, external or USB - this should not be a deal breaker but it might be a minor moan.

Auric

 

re sata future proofing - it's future revisions of sata that should show the improvements, not the current ones. the other thing to check - sata connectors. havent built a shuttle with a sata drive, so cant confirm but i would expect them to provide the necessary connections as part of the package - shuttle are good for giving you everything you need - thermal compound is a nice touch.
when building a non-shuttle, you will need a sata signal cable i.e. the sata equivalent of the ide ribbon cable, plus a sata power lead converter, to attach to one of the molex connectors inside the case. the sata connections are completely different from ide.

to install sata with XP - the drivers that come with your motherboard will be on a cd (go figure) you will need to locate these and put them on a floppy disk. near the beginning of the xp install - screen is still blue - it says press pf6 to install 3rd party raid / sata drivers - do that at the correct time, and it will then later ask for the drivers that you have on the floppy disk. note, as auric has mentioned, they will only work from floppy. if the install fails i.e. it doesn't like the sata drivers for whatever reason - missing file for example, you have to copy them from the motherboard driver cd and you could easily miss one - then you have to start the xp install over again from scratch.

i now have a sata driver floppy disk prepared so when i build a pc for a customer i dont have that fuss - it's a pain the first time you do it, but that's all part of the learning curve.